


The Ghost Chase

by lesbianpatrick



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe- Supernatural, Alternate Universe- TV Show, Angst, Character Death, Getting Together, Ghosts, M/M, OK GET READY, TV Show, ghost - Freeform, i think that's all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:33:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7598281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianpatrick/pseuds/lesbianpatrick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Do you believe in ghosts? If you said no, then prepare to have your mind changed. Ghosts are real, and I'm here to give you the proof. I'm Pete Wentz, that's my co-host Joe Trohman..." (and here a pointed finger towards Joe) "...and this is The Ghost Chase."</em>
</p>
<p>Pete and Joe are co-hosts of a ghost hunting show...but of course, it's all fake. Because there's no such thing as ghosts.</p>
<p>Except that belief is thrown aside when the two friends move into a legitimate haunted house to film a few episodes in a small beach town in Washington. And something sinister seems to be afoot...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A correctly capitalized title that isn't a song lyric??? You know what that means! MULTICHAPTER FIC NOT SET IN CANON!!!
> 
> idk what this is but I've planned the whole plot #noregrets 
> 
> Also ask me about the TØP concert I was at a week ago today 
> 
> Enjoy!

"And we're rolling!" One of the crew members announces, and Pete clears his throat to deliver the practiced intro he's had to repeat for fifty-eight episodes of this damn show. 

"Do you believe in ghosts? If you said no, then prepare to have your mind changed. Ghosts are real, and I'm here to give you the proof. I'm Pete Wentz, that's my co-host Joe Trohman..." (and here a pointed finger towards Joe) "...and this is The Ghost Chase."

"Cut!" 

Pete sighs as the cameraman stops recording, turning to converse with the girl holding the boom mic. Joe walks over and pokes his neck. "'Sup."

"Hey!" Pete fakes anger and fake-punches Joe's shoulder in response. "What's up, man?"

"Do you ever get tired of it?" Joe suddenly asks, face going from a playful grin to a serious frown surprisingly quickly. 

"Of what?" Pete asks, matching Joe's frown, but his is out of confusion. 

"Of this." Joe answers, gesturing to the people bustling around them, prepping for the next shot. "Of repeating that same damn intro when you know it's all fake."

Pete laughs sadly, shaking his head slowly. "C'mon, man. You know the answer." He shrugs. "I guess I'm just paid to still believe it."

Joe laughs a little at that, but there's no humor in it. "Yeah. Me too."

The director calls for them to move position for the next shot, and Pete and Joe share one more look before following along with her directions. 

Pete doesn't understand how people believe this shit is real. 

~*~

It'd started as a joke. A drunken dare, actually. More specifically, a drunken dare after one too many drinks and twelve too many episodes of _Ghost Adventures_. Pete believes Joe's exact words were, "Dude. If you can go to a big-wig producer and get them to produce a convincing but fake ghost show starring us, I'll give you a hundred bucks."

As it turned out, a big-wig producer, in this case a woman named Chelsea McCaffery, was in fact interested in filming a bogus ghost show, and seemed to think that Pete and Joe were just the obnoxious idiots she needed to star in it. And thus, The Ghost Chase was born. 

People ate it up. Everyone seemed to believe the masterpiece of deception was real, and no one was ever the wiser. At first, the show had been fun, but after five seasons (as Pete would sometimes joke, five too many), it lost its excitement. 

Something that had started as a joke had obviously gone much too far. 

~*~

"Winchester Mystery House got terrible ratings." Chelsea says, dropping a pile of papers onto the desk in front of Pete and Joe. Pete should've known this meeting wouldn't be good after their insane boss's tone over the phone earlier. 

"Yeah, and what are we supposed to do about it?" Joe asks, a defensive edge to his tone. "We don't make the ratings. We just act like idiots on national TV and hope people enjoy it."

"I've got an idea." Chelsea answers, her voice rising in a sort of calm anger that makes Joe sink back into his seat. 

"Go on." Pete says, feigning interest and leaning forward onto his elbows. 

"We do a multi-episode special." Chelsea explains, crossing her arms and frowning condescendingly. "I'll make up some lame story about a demon haunting a random house in a random beach town. I'll pay the locals to tell the story on camera, pay them again to believe it, and pay them another time to forget they were paid. You stay there for a month, film a few episodes, and maybe at the end have one of you get possessed by the so-called demon or whatever. Whichever one of you's the better actor."

Pete automatically points to Joe, who snorts and mutters, "Well, he's not wrong."

"Good." Chelsea says, and continues, "Because I've already bought you a nice house on the beach, and your plane tickets are tomorrow."

"What?" Pete and Joe exclaim in unison, eyes going wide.

"I don't care if you had plans. Your show can get mysteriously cut anytime, you know." Chelsea threatens, glaring. 

Pete sighs in defeat. "Fine. Forget my sister's fucking _wedding_ , then. We'll do it."

"That's what I thought." Chelsea beams somewhat maniacally, then gestures to the door. "You might want to pack, boys."

Muttering a string of insults under his breath, Pete gets up and leaves, with Joe trailing behind. He isn't sure why they feel the need to keep doing this. They may never know. 

~*~

"Who the hell has ever heard of Sequim, Washington?" Joe asks, gesturing all around them at the forested beach town they're standing in the middle of. 

"You're pronouncing it wrong." Pete says. "It's pronounced 'squim'. The e is silent."

"Fuck off, I'm kind of upset right now." Joe mutters, flipping Pete off, but smiling good-naturedly nonetheless.

"Yeah, I know." Pete sighs, nodding. He does know. He really does. 

"Hey!" Someone yells, and Pete and Joe both turn to see a girl with a mess of bleach blonde hair much too pale for her dark skin running at them. When she reaches them, she says, "You. You're the guys from-"

"The Ghost Chase." Pete finished for her, sighing. "Yeah, I know."

She grins, her eyes lighting up. "I heard you were coming here. My name's Kyara, and everyone says I'm the best town tour guide there is."

"That's great." Joe pipes up, giving the excited girl a smile back. "If you're such a good guide, could you tell us where we're staying?"

"Oh! The House on The Hill." Kyara replies, pointing off into the distance in a seemingly random direction. "Yeah, I heard you're staying there. I can show you how to get there."

Pete lets out a relieved sigh. He'd thought they would be lost, honestly. Thank god for annoying teenage girls, he supposes. "Thanks so much."

"No problem." Kyara beams, then casually adds, "Y'know, some guy died there."

"Uh." Pete blinks, and shares a horrified look with Joe. "Thanks for the...pleasant...bit of info."

Kyara giggles. "Sorry, I like telling people that and seeing their reactions. Really, though. He was the town weirdo, rarely left his house, and one day he was found in the kitchen with a bullet through his skull and a knife in his hand. To this day no one knows what happened. And," she winks and leans closer, "I know you're filming your show somewhere else, but some people say his ghost is still there."

Pete sighs. That's interesting, really, but he knows for a fact that ghosts aren't actually real. But he does have to wonder, if there was already a legend surrounding the place where they're actually staying, why would Chelsea have them do an episode about a different place and a made up legend? He pushes that thought aside, though, and just says, "Can you take us there now? We can walk, right?"

"Yeah!" Kyara nods excitedly. "No problem. Five minutes, tops."

"Good." Joe speaks up. "I'm tired enough from jet lag already."

Kyara motions them forward and starts leading the way to the house, chattering at a hundred miles an hour all the while. 

~*~

The house is...weird. Not in its design, no. In that, it's a normal house, with faded sky blue paint and garish lime green trim, two floors, and a rusted weathervane. But somehow it just... _feels_ wrong. For a second, Pete's mind travels back to the legend of the ghost haunting this place, but then he catches himself and laughs instead. There's no ghost. There's never a ghost. He of all people should know that. 

The house is already furnished, and there's two bedrooms with two beds already made up (one of the few good things about hosting the show), so Pete and Joe go their separate ways and go to bed, sleep catching up with them quickly. Pete falls asleep watching the moonlight stream in and wondering why he's trapped himself in this mess of money and lies. 

~*~

Pete wakes up freezing. It takes his sleepy mind a moment to register that the blankets have been removed from his bed. He groans and sits up, looking around, but he doesn't see them anywhere in the room. He frowns. Granted, that's weird, but there's always a logical explanation. He know that. He gets up, stretching, and exits the room. As soon as he pulls his door open, he sees his blankets tossed on the ground outside the door, and laughs to himself. Of course his sheets hadn't just disappeared. That would be ridiculous. A small part of his mind asks "so how did they get into the hall?", but he just pushes it back and gets on with the day.

Pete lazily throws the blankets back into his room and walks down the hall, down the stairs, and into the living room, where Joe is on the couch, busy channel surfing. Pete sees a flash of their show for a second, but the channel changes immediately, so he doesn't even see which episode it is. It's not like he ever wants to watch as he and his best friend act like idiots and fake hauntings across the country. 

"Morning." Pete says, waving lackadaisically.

Joe nods in response, not so much as looking over at Pete. "Yeah, hi. I made eggs, yours are in the kitchen, and-"

He's cut off by a loud crash in the kitchen, and someone loudly yelling " _shit_!"

Pete and Joe both look to the kitchen door, then to each other. 

"What the hell." Joe whispers, eyes wide in surprise and something almost like fear. 

"I don't know." Pete whispers back, turning back towards the kitchen. "I'm gonna go check it out. Back me up?"

Joe nods, not speaking, and gets off the couch to follow Pete as he makes his way towards the kitchen. In one fluid motion, Pete pushes open the knob-less door to reveal a broken plate on the floor, scrambled eggs scattered everywhere, and in the middle of it all, a man who looks to be just a bit younger than Pete with dirty blonde hair, a fedora sitting askew on his head, and most notably, _a bullet hole through his forehead that's dripping blood._

"What the _fuck_?" Pete nearly screams, and he hears Joe let loose an actual scream behind him. 

The man in the kitchen, seemingly unfazed by the bullet hole through his head, looks up at them and holds up his hands in defense. "Look, man, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to knock over your eggs."

"That is _not_ what I meant!" Pete yells, gaping at the intruder. What the actual fuck?

"Who are you and how did you get in our house?" Joe adds, voice shaking as he stares over Pete's shoulder at their uninvited guest.

The man crosses his arms and rolls his eyes, like he's the one who has reason to be annoyed with them, and not the other way around. "I'm Patrick, and this is _not_ your house."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I really, really like to torture Pete Wentz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is dedicated to Kell for being annoying and making me finish it
> 
> It's a lil bit on the short side but ehhhh
> 
> Enjoy!

Pete is shaking, and doesn't know if he can form coherent sentences right now, but nonetheless he manages to force out, "That answers neither of the questions!"

Patrick sighs, as if he's disappointed for some reason, and says, "You're the guys from The Ghost Chase."

Pete swallows a bit of bile that's rising in his throat and answers, "We...yes. We are." He's surprised that he hadn't managed to finish Patrick's sentence like he'd finished Kyara's yesterday, like he'd finished any fan's on the street hundreds, if not thousands of times before. 

"Good show." Patrick says, nodding slowly like he's making a personal evaluation in his head, and adding, "I mean, it was all fake, but good show."

"You know it's fake?" Joe blurts out, because no one is supposed to know that. How does this guy somehow know?

Patrick shudders, looking for a brief moment like he's remembering something he really doesn't want to remember, then says, "Oh yeah. I know."

"Oh." Pete says, voice hushed. 

"So." Patrick clears his throat, giving Pete and Joe a pointed look before continuing. "As two guys hosting a fake ghost hunting show, tell me. What's it like to see a real ghost?"

" _What_?" Pete sputters, mouth dropping open in a perfect 'O'. There aren't supposed to be real ghosts. There can't be real ghosts. It's impossible. 

Patrick looks amused at Pete's reaction. "What, did you think I took a bullet through my head and managed to still be alive afterwards?"

Pete tries to form a response, but he's got nothing. He turns to Joe for help, and Joe manages to ask, "Okay, what the fuck?"

"I lived for a little and then I died and I just kind of stuck around after that." Patrick both speaks and shrugs nonchalantly, as if this is just casual information, as if Pete and Joe shouldn't be absolutely horrified by it (which, for the record, they are). 

"Oh." Pete whispers again, blinking at Patrick. Other than the hole in his forehead, he looks like he could be alive, but Pete supposes that that assumption could in fact be wrong. He clears his throat and asks, "You...you said this wasn't our house, uh...do you want us to leave?"

Patrick laughs at that, and Pete does his best to ignore how cute he looks when he smiles and squeezes his eyes shut like that, because Patrick is _dead_ , and Pete is pretty sure he should have serious moral issues with that. 

"Is that a no?" Joe pipes up, an obvious questioning edge to his voice. 

"Yes, it's a no." Patrick replies, offering what seems to be a reassuring smile. "I haven't had anyone around for two years. No one wants to buy the house where some guy died, y'know, and I can't actually leave the property...I appreciate the company."

"That's...depressing." Pete says, raising an eyebrow.

Patrick shrugs. "It's been okay. There's a wild cat that lives around here. I named her Allie and she visits me sometimes."

"Your only friend for two years was a cat." Joe says, voice laced with disbelief. 

Patrick laughs again, and Pete thinks he needs to either stop being so cute or stop being so dead, honestly. "It's not like I had too many friends when I was alive, either."

"Then we're your friends." Pete announces, surprising even himself. 

Patrick smiles at that. "That's great, then. I promise I won't knock your eggs over again."

"I promise I'll remember that it's your house." Pete replies, which makes Patrick laugh again, _god_ , can he just stop doing that?

"I'll...make more eggs for Pete." Joe volunteers, pushing past Pete into the kitchen. He turns to Patrick and asks slowly, "Do you...eat?"

"Can't." Patrick replies, sighing. "I wish."

"Oh. That's too bad." Joe says quietly, turning to the fridge to grab some more eggs (yes, the already stocked fridge is another TV show host perk). 

"Yeah, Joe's a damn good cook." Pete says, grinning at the face Joe makes in his direction. 

"I only do it 'cause you burned water the last time you tried, idiot." Joe says, pointing an accusatory finger in Pete's direction. Pete just laughs. 

"I'll clean up the mess I made." Patrick suggests, pointing at the shards of ceramic and scraps of egg still littering the tiled floor.

"Thanks." Joe calls over his shoulder as he pulls a pan out of a cupboard (and guess what the free dishes are a perk of?). 

Patrick drops to his knees to pick up the mess, and Pete tears his eyes away from the ever-present hole in his head that mars his otherwise great face. ( _He's dead_ , Pete reminds himself, delivering a mental slap for good measure.)

Then it really hits him. Patrick is _dead_. He's a _ghost_. And as someone who's hosted a fake ghost show for years, the real deal is _not_ what Pete had expected. 

~*~

As amazed by the fact that there is a real, actual ghost in the house they're staying in as they are, Pete and Joe are still here to film a show, and they still have to work on that. And that afternoon, they have to meet up with the director to talk about what they're shooting first. 

Unfortunately, they have to leave Patrick to do this (he can't leave the house anyway, but even if he could, the bullet hole in his head would still be a major setback in public). 

After a couple goodbyes, Patrick quickly hugs Pete, which leads to, firstly, the discovery that Patrick definitely has a solid, corporeal form (a discovery which surprises Pete, to say the least, and his reaction illicits a laugh and a "what did you expect?" from Patrick), and Pete getting extremely flustered at the sudden invasion of personal space by a person who he considers cute but who is also dead. 

Overall, it's a big fucking "get the hell out of this house right now" for Pete. 

As he an Joe are completing the five minute walk into town, Joe suddenly says, "Dude. Don't even."

Pete frowns, giving Joe a quick confused look. "What?"

Joe laughs, making an 'isn't it obvious?' face. "He's dead, don't even _try_ that shit."

Pete swallows hard and plants his feet firmly on the path, spinning to face Joe. "No idea what you're talking about."

Joe rolls his eyes. "Funny. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

It takes all Pete has in him to stop his face from going bright red and just keep walking. "I don't-"

Joe interrupts him by suddenly yelling, "Pete Wentz wants to fuck a dead guy!"

"Joe, shut _up_!" Pete screams, turning to glare at Joe. 

Joe just laughs. "Knew it."

"For the record, I hate you." Pete says, pointing an accusatory finger at Joe and continuing on his way, seeing the town appear through the trees. 

"Mhm. And you looooove Patrick." Joe replies. Pete doesn't have to look to know he's smirking. 

Pete doesn't respond to that, just presses on. He hopes Joe pulls it together by the time they get to the cafe they're meeting the director at. Hell, he hopes _he_ pulls it together by then. 

And he desperately wishes that Joe wasn't right.


End file.
